A Petri Dish clarifying his own thoughts while also analyzing the researcher. Exploration inspired by the book 'Being Different'. @IntegralUnity

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Duality masquerading as Advaita

We saw in the previous post ("Contradiction Networks") that the centralized management of the membership associated with History-Centric Thought Systems (HCTS) attempt to redefine themselves by de-emphasizing the HC model without actually eliminating the logical source of the maze of contradictions that characterize HCTS after a finite time period. Such an approach:
a) obfuscates rather than illuminates, and
b) digests, appropriates, and re-brands by stealth, rather than openly borrow, share, or acknowledge.

The
level of obfuscation can (and has) reached such tragic levels in the
west that the HC-induced duality can (and is now able to) give itself a makeover and present
itself in terms of non-duality. Consider this exhibit (thanks to: Atanu
Dey): Conference of Science and Non Duality ("SAND").

Years
of painstaking analysis and data gathering efforts by Rajiv Malhotra
indicates a distinct pattern emerging within those who sponsor and
participate in conferences like these (screenshots below are taken from
SAND website):

- there are conferences that consist of
members, sponsors, and supporters who are overwhelmingly from the west, many of whom appear to
have appropriated ideas, processes, and methods from
the Dharmic knowledge base and repackaged such appropriated
information as their "own" discovery by deleting its Hindu or Buddhist
source and claiming its generic nature (note that such conferences are
labeled non-dual rather than Dharmic!):

- The patronizing attitude that is symptomatic of duality is evident: Original non-western (Indian and Tibetan) discoverers and practitioners of such "generic" methods are categorized as (non-scientific or pre-rational) philosophers, sages, or mystics, whereas the westerners who are essentially reinventing the wheel or measuring the level of success of the original scientific discovery have hijacked this success and designated themselves as scientists in self-justification of this blatant unscientific knowledge appropriation:

- Commercial Exploitation
of such uncredited appropriations from open-source Dharmic thought systems is conducted by filing patent claims, and/or obtaining academic research grants and overseas conference trips in
lieu of direct commercial gain. For example, here is the snapshot of
the actual patent claim on "Lucid Dreaming" US 2010/0130813
that is almost certainly ripped from prior-art Hindu/Buddhist
methods with no credit or royalty given (see video below for details):

- Stifling
of voices that point out the unethical practices that many (but not all)
have employed in consideration of material benefits rather than allow a two-way conversation: Here is a full two-hour lecture by Rajiv Malhotra (thanks to:
Karmasura) that systematically reviews some of the
more prominent instances of uncredited appropriation of Indian Methods based on Dharmic thought
systems:

In other words, grand titles for "non-dual conferences" similar to SAND tend to be oxymorons. They are both unscientific and anti-Dharmic! Rajiv Malhotra's next book on U-Turn Theory that among other things may expose such cynical and exploitative patterns of behavior, cannot come out soon enough!

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Dharampal

pic source: http://www.samanvaya.com/dharampal)

Gandhi's Hind Swaraj

Aurobindo

S. L. Bhyrappa

Original Indian Thinker & Author

Encouraging words from Sri Rajiv Malhotra

"This is the kind of scholar I have hoped to discover through mywritings and inspire. He has immersed himself into the history centrism thesis,then emerged with his own creative manthana based on it. He proposes novel ways of looking at it. All the blogs listed on the right margin are the product of original hard work and worth reading. My thanks go to him"